The rest of the family went to see a theatrical screening of The Wizard of Oz yesterday, but I spent the hours that they were away knitting a second fuzzy slipper, hand-felting the slippers, and then running a couple of quick errands.
Last evening, one of my oldest friends -- [...]
I meant to post a photo essay on today's feast, but I'm too sleepy.
In honor of the show's fortieth anniversary, and in honor of our trip to the zoo yesterday, here's one of my favorite Sesame Street bits ever:
' [...]At the last minute, I decided to go along to the zoo today with Calder, the kids, and my in-laws, which meant that the last of the last-minute grocery runs happened at 8:45pm, and that I still have two pies to bake and some stuffing to prepare. Now that the [...]
This is the week when I become convinced that the founders of NaBloPoMo must have strange relationships with Thanksgiving. Who chooses November to post every day? This one week alone must take a lot of people in the States right out of the running.
I thrill to the sight of long [...]
Just in case today gets away from me, what with the whole "what can I prepare ahead of time to impress my mother-in-law at Thanksgiving" question, here's a brief little thought I had as I read Jamie's post about the difference between mothering your first child and mothering [...]
All three kids had their last soccer games of the season today at 4:45pm. The season was meant to end on Saturday, November 7th, but there were so many rain cancellations that it kept going and going. They never did make up one last lonely week -- the fields close [...]
I'm likely to knit the mittens, the gloves, and the socks someday. I want the gloves for typing, the socks because I keep making socks for the kids but they rarely wear them, and the mittens because I'd like to try stranded knitting.
In the meantime, my desire to start something [...]
I am just back from the neighborhood book club, and I am too tired to write anything coherent. Instead, you get a quick little list of the books we are reading this year.
September: The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan October: Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and [...]I keep thinking that I am going to do a little new knitting, but I can't commit. Perhaps you can help.
Should I try knitting some DROPS mittens in the colors used for the model?
Or perhaps a pair of socks in the pattern that the Yarn Harlot just used, [...]
I started the month talking about the relentless labor of parenthood, so you could reasonably expect me to want to write about Sandra Tsing Loh's latest essay in The Atlantic Monthly, the second in a series she's writing about the collapse of her marriage and the conclusions she [...]
CJ wants to know who gets up with your wakeful kids (and I'll add, your pets -- I'm allergic, but I hear cats can be persistent). A couples-centric question, of course.
DaniGirl wonders what gifts will be popular at your house this holiday season.
It seems especially churlish to complain about my incredibly minor mother-in-law troubles on the same day that American Family posted her MIL story, but I am feeling a little peckish.
I should start by saying that I have a very good relationship with my MIL now. She's an easy guest, [...]
So, there's no consensus whatsoever on bathroom colors. At least my indecision isn't completely without basis.
I'm leaning toward something in the choclately-taupy-rich cream-burnt umber range, but I haven't quite settled on what. It's very site-specific, though. Most of the time, I prefer lemony yellows, peachy tones, or foam greens (those [...]
Gemma and Calder are walking in fear, now that three of us have succumbed to this 24-hour stomach bug. At least it's over quickly, with only a little bit of a dehydration headache and a big sleep deficit left behind.
I had started November intending to clear my bloglines feed at [...]
Wilder woke up with a fever, and I spent the middle of the day feverishly wiping surfaces with bleach. I keep thinking, I must have missed something.
I felt queasy in the car, driving to pick up the kids, but assumed it was the fumes.
It wasn't the fumes. (I feel better [...]
Home from school for the holiday, we had a late breakfast this morning. At one point, Wilder went to stand right next to the radio while NPR broadcast a story about one of the first women to serve as a drill sergeant in the army. (I spent far too [...]
Elba, Gemma, and Wilder never loved Sesame Street as I did, and I am not surprised. As far as I'm concerned, the show peaked in the mid-eighties, and has spent the last fifteen years shredding its soul in a failing [...]
So, in the see-saw of my emotions these past few days, I might have neglected to consider a few concrete variables. For one, Calder was out of town from Wednesday through Friday last week. That's not very long, barely a blip really, but perhaps it affected my mood. For another, [...]
Calder and I watched The Proposal last night after the bedtime fiasco (I wrote yesterday's post in the immediate aftermath of Angry Child's refusal to allow me into the bedroom to say goodnight), which was good from a "don't go to bed in despair" POV but sabotaged any [...]
Lately the work of housekeeping and parenting has felt exhausting and relentless. This makes no sense, because the kids are in school five days a week. But almost every night, I collapse into bed, worn out with the never-ending round of managing our finances, looking after our house (we had [...]
Because Wilder threw up at 1am, and went on to repeat the process ever 30 to 60 minutes up until noon, a book meme via Jennifer at Under the Ponderosa and Magpie Musing:
1) You are facing an epic journey. You may choose one companion, one tool and one [...]
Back in 2006, I started to draft a post about the relative happiness of motherhood, but I never finalized it, and now I don't know why. I've made a few minor edits for flow, but mostly I'm throwing it up there as it was written almost four years ago. [...]
The kids are at school from 7:10 in the morning, when they leave for the bus stop, until 2:45 in the afternoon, when they arrive home via car. All three of them pretty much walk in the door and throw themselves down with a book somewhere, dropping shoes and backpacks [...]
On the one hand, you all exhaust me. On the other hand, I imagine that we'll be a lot busier at some point in the future ourselves. Transitioning from one state to another is the hard part, I suppose.
We're less busy this year than last year. Everyone resumed pottery after [...]
So, we've found a subject that worries lots of people! I'm still worried about Wilder and school friendships but I'm reassured to know that lots of people worry about the question.
Right now, we participate in YMCA sports, which only meet once a week, for a combined practice/game where there's supposed [...]
I found out on Friday that one of the boys whom Wilder considers a "best friend" had a birthday over the weekend, and Wilder was the only one of the group not invited to the party. This particular boy's mother has consistently evaded my offers of playdates, and I just [...]
I was going to compose a thorough, thoughtful update on the kids' reading habits and preferences, but it hasn't happened yet and it's not likely to happen soon. We're heading into the home stretch on the third Mysterious Benedict Society book, and Wilder is already asking what we're going [...]
First, I found practice tests online. Our state posts sample End of Grade tests on the Board of Education website, and I used those as a reasonable stand-in for the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The Naglieri required a little more finessing, and probably too much money, but I managed [...]
I've known for a couple of years now about the end-of-grade assessments that start in third grade, and I've made my peace with their effects on the rhythm of the school year. What I didn't expect was the angst I would feel about another round of assessments in third grade:' [...]
Elba, Gemma, and Wilder are in their second week of school now, and it's all going well. Very well, actually. The year is off to a good start.
Of course, I do have one small complaint, but it's not about school. It's about parents.
Here's the background: At the end of second [...]
I hired a housecleaning service through December.
I know, I know, the whole thing makes me incredibly uncomfortable. In my own defense, I hired a local company with a reputation for treating its workers well. They charge accordingly, hence the plan to use them for only a few months.
What else [...]
So, opinion seems mixed on the possibility of a four-weeks overdue baby, which is as it should be, I imagine. To be clear, I'm absolutely willing to believe that some percentage of babies are born very late, and that the percentage was much higher back in 1970. I'm sure Calder [...]
Let's say a woman you know tells you that she conceived her firstborn child on the evening of July 20, 1969. Let's say that a pregnancy calculator tells you that a baby conceived on that day would be due on April 12, 1970. Let's say that you celebrate [...]
I downloaded samples of all the books you recommended, and all of the samples intrigued me, but then I didn't buy a single one. Instead I read the trashy novel my mother gave me for my birthday.
This failure to download has happened often, because when confronted with the Buy [...]
Loathe as I am to break my blog silence only to respond to the claims of a certain recent tabloid staple, there appears to be no evidence whatsoever that parents of multiples divorce at higher rates than parents of singletons. A 2003 study in Denmark found that 7.3 [...]
This about sums up what we're all doing now.
[This is a video taken on Sunday morning, for those using feed-readers that stumble on embedded video.]
[...][And I may not see it -- I loathe retcons.]
Watch My Favorite Movie (Star Trek vs. Star Wars) and more funny videos on CollegeHumor [...]Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth.
I cannot imagine what you've been through, these past few years. Cancer, a presidential primary campaign, your big ole cheating husband. But darling, when it comes to the cheater, I think you need to re-think your position. Because you seem to have [...]
The people who built this house planted rhododendrons along the foundation in the front of the house. People seem to do this often, and while it seems to make sense -- evergreen foliage, pretty flowers -- it's often quite foolish, because rhododendrons usually want to be 10-15 feet tall. Luckily [...]
Teacher appreciation is upon us, and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. Send flowers on this day, and here is the list of favorite flowers for the three teachers and three teachers' aides and three support staff we're sponsoring. Send foods on this day, and here are the lists of [...]
It's none of my business, but every celebrity who conceives after the age of 42 is going to tweak my "hmmm, wonder what protocol they were using" radar, and I'm going with donor eggs in the Sarah Jessica Parker/Matthew Broderick surrogate-carried twins conception. On the assumption that you want [...]
So, in the comments to my last post, several folks mentioned Rosin's article about breastfeeding and formula in the latest issue of Atlantic Monthly. For the record, I had no interest in discussing that article and I still don't. I was purely and solely aghast at Warner's astonishing leap from [...]
I don't have anything much to say about breastfeeding and breast pumps that Cecily hasn't said already -- I might emphasize that, after the first few days, pumping with my hospital-grade super-pump was never physically uncomfortable -- but I did want to tell you that pumping milk for my [...]
So, a couple of months ago, I added to my feed-reader a blog about a mother who had been promoted from adjunct to tenure-track. I thought this might be a blog worth reading, for the obvious academic-life reasons.
It turns out the mother doesn't write nearly as much about her professional [...]
I know what the kids are going to be doing this weekend:
We lost three trees to high winds a few weeks ago, and one of them was perched at an angle against another tree. So after years of talk about "getting a tree service [...]
Here's the story. DaniGirl at Postcards from the MotherShip entered a contest to win a free trip to Blogher this summer. And her entry won her a spot as one of the ten finalists. And I've checked, and it doesn't look like any of the other finalists read [...]
Over at AmericanFamily, Amber posed a series of questions about changing parenting norms and when we feel comfortable with certain situations.
I'm transcribing my answers here (with a few minor edits) after each of Amber's questions.
1) At what age is a child old enough to be left alone in [...]
In honor of Nadya Suleman, the New York Times MotherLode blog asked a mother of 11-month old triplets to write a brief essay about her life. It stirred up quite the little controversy over at the Triplet Connection, which reminded me why I don't go there anymore. People can't [...]
So now Tom Daschle is gone, too, for failing to pay his taxes.
Elizabeth at Half-Changed World understands why people are angry about Daschle's under-payment. Becca at Not Quite Sure thinks the tax code is too confusing for everyone. The New York Times polled a group of [...]
Over the weekend, I fielded dozens of page loads on my "selective reduction" category, sent via a forum post behind a log-in wall. I can only assume that the birth of the California octuplets generated the renewed interest, and I hope that the new visitors found my posts useful.
I find the entire [...]
I wandered off into the children's book blogs earlier in the month, and immediately felt overwhelmed. There is a ton of information out there about good books for readers ages eight and up, and much of the new stuff is completely unfamiliar to me. It [...]
I'm on another "update the HOM Blogroll" jag, and the thing has gotten so ridiculously long* that I've decided to break it up by year of birth. It's a nice mindless diversion from the dissertation, and because I'm only re-catagorizing the list I already have, I've given myself permission [...]
This was the first year when I didn't think, the night of the kids' birthday, "where did the time go? It seems like they were [doing some much-younger-kid thing] just yesterday." It has been eight full years, and it feels like it. I was pregnant and in the hospital and [...]
I prepare our taxes using "a popular tax-preparation computer program," Calder is occasionally paid by an organization with similar tax standing to the IMF, and there is absolutely no way that anyone could be confused about his tax obligations regarding payments from those organizations.
Tax-preparation software asks a detailed series [...]
Just in case the Chief Justice's stage fright might have become an issue, they had a do-over?
Honestly, it was fine the first time. Irritating that Roberts stepped on Obama's moment, but fine.
Where were we when Obama took office? We were eating lunch in the ski lodge. School had [...]
In our state, children in cars must ride in car seats or boosters until they are eight years old or weigh eighty pounds. None of our children weighs eighty pounds yet, but they are very soon to be eight. It would appear that our days of car seat- and booster-juggling [...]
Time for some honesty: In my heart of hearts, I did not want to go stand in the cold for six hours for the Inauguration. Yeah, yeah, it would make a nice story some day, but none of my three children was going to be grateful on January 20th to [...]
Not surprisingly, we did not win the Inauguration lottery with our local congressman. His office reports that they received 25,000 requests for the 198 tickets given them. I suspect we would have been given only two tickets even if we had won.
Now I have to decide whether to go to [...]
We had a really weak Christmas pageant this year, one part massive dislocation caused by ongoing construction, one part declining membership because of never-ending capital campaigns for ongoing construction. So I can't comment on the competition over Christmas pageants, not least because my kids were Gabriel, Isaiah, and the [...]
Sorry not to post yesterday (Tuesday) -- we had an 8:30am appointment and then I was just busy with kid-stuff all day. Plus the virus has hit me now, too -- sore throat, achy ears, general exhaustion (or maybe that's just all the interrupted sleep).
At the doctor's office, Wilder's pulse-ox [...]
Last Thursday, Wilder caught Gemma's 48-hour cold -- runny nose, low fever, mild headache. His Singulair prescription ran out at the beginning of last week, and because the refills needed their annual approval, I didn't call in a new scrip to the pharmacy. Plus it was Christmas Day and I [...]
If you go looking, you will find many triplet videos on YouTube that feature a particular Sinead O'Connor song, Three Babies.
Just in case you're not familiar with the song, here is a brief bit of the lyrics:
In my soulWe have to have our cars inspected before the end of the year, so I'm parked at a coffee shop while the mechanics work on the minivan. I've brought dissertation stuff and a laptop, and I've been chugging along. The local university is done for the winter, so even though [...]
I owe Julie at A Little Pregnant a huge shout-out, because she has eased my mind about something that has been driving me crazy for weeks.
Remember when I posted the CBS Special Presentation Logo? I had wanted to pair it with one of the classic ads I remembered [...]
I swear I didn't see this cartoon before I commented over at Bitch Ph.D.
It's been two days now, and I still haven't decided whether to do tinsel this year. And the angel is still sitting on the coffee table, because [...]
My children have Webkinz toys; they are allowed to use Webkinz for their 20 minutes of weekend computer time (other popular options: their school's library web portal, Google Earth, and Lego Star Wars II). Lately the children have decided that the quiz-points section is not quite as [...]
Last spring, I took the big administrative step required by my supervisor to finish my dissertation in US History. I wrote a new prospectus, I planned out what still needed to be done, I imagined all my puttering as a completed work.
Before taking that step, I made myself a promise: [...]
I know it's too large for my site, but I wanted you to play with this very cool Advent Calendar, and then maybe bookmark the Trinity Wall Street site for yourself.
When they're not acting all crazy and mean, those Episcopalians are good.
[...]
